After searching the internet endlessly and pouring over subcommittee articles I decided that my next build would be a seaview hull made by Rick Teskey who resides in canada. I was immediatly impressed by the pictures I saw of it on cultTVman.com and decided that it was the sexiest boat that I had ever seen. I knew that I wanted a boat that was different than all the others and that I wouldnt be satisfied with another me too boat ,I emailed him.
He informed me that the hull could indeed be purchased by me for $650 + shipping and that he only made the 8 window version. The only other seaview available was the Deboer version that had the 4 windows used in most of the tv episodes. It was considerably larger and more expensive and I decided that Ricks boat was right for me. Heres a picture of the Deboer seaview.

Last edited by greenman407 on Sat Dec 08, 2007 6:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.

There are OLD pilots and there are BOLD pilots but there are very few OLD BOLD pilots. MAG

Rick was nice enough to send me a few pictures to wet my appetite, this was the clincher.
It arrived one sunny day about a year ago in a bullet proof container. After 15 minutes of struggling to get it open I was not surprised to see that it arrived undamaged. I was really getting excited as I contemplated building it. Rick told me that Dave Merriman made a kit just for his seaview. It included a special 3" wtc with dual drive outputs, 2 jet ski type impellers, a beautiful highly detailed sail,a lot of parts to build an interior for the nose, lenses, masts,and dive planes and rudders. The quality of Dave Merrimans parts was driven home to me as I examined his work. Both Rick Teskey and Dave Merriman have been of great help in the building of this boat. First step was to plan my build and determine where to start. I decided that the first step would be to epoxy the upper and lower nose pieces together.
As you can see here I laid all the parts together roughly in there proper position on the model for this photo. Also you will note that my pictures are pretty crowded with other stuff going on at the time as I never thought that I would be doing a builders thread to share with other people. In fact at the time I didnt even know what one was, nor was I a member of the subcommittee. So here is a shot of the joining of the top and bottom nose pieces.
You cant see from this picture but I just lightly CAed the parts together to hold them then I wrapped the seams on the outside with masking tape and poured two part epoxy inside in stages. Allowing the epoxy to dry before I repositioned the model for the next stage I allowed gravity to hold the epoxy in place before I rotated the model and applied epoxy for the next area. Try not to get too much epoxy inside.

Last edited by greenman407 on Sat Dec 08, 2007 6:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.

There are OLD pilots and there are BOLD pilots but there are very few OLD BOLD pilots. MAG

Actually I am getting ahead of myself. Before I joined the two pieces together I wanted to cut in the windows. Since this is a science fiction sub and I am not known for being a rivet counter I decided to depart briefly from the pure seaview design and make a few changes to suit my personal preferences. I didnt like the large rectangular windows of the movie version seaview so I decided that I would cut in smaller square windows with slightly rounded corners. To better enable me to do this I used a laser level that projects a horizontal and a vertical line. Carefully lining everything up on a flat surface I put the level inline with the centerline of the model and established centerlines on the models nose. Working from there I penciled in the horizontal and vertical lines for the windows as I saw fit. This required raising and lowering the model and level to get the lines of the level to hit the model at the right height .After drawing in the lines with pencil it was time to start cutting

Since I am a dremel man from way back it didnt prove to be a problem. I just used an end mill to pierce the window area and then to cut over to and along the lines that I had already established. Cleanup of the holes was done using a file . Of course a mistake or to was repaired with a little bondo here and there and some spot putty, sanding ,filing and it was done.

Last edited by greenman407 on Sat Dec 08, 2007 6:02 pm, edited 2 times in total.

There are OLD pilots and there are BOLD pilots but there are very few OLD BOLD pilots. MAG

A word needs to be said about the quality of this hull. If you take a good hard look at this model you will see that it took a lot of work to get it looking right. There are a lot of compound curves at the nose and the contours of the manta ray style wings took, im sure many man hours to get this thing looking this good. Rick teskey really did his homework! Its gelcoat finish is nice and smooth. He made my job much easier.Here is a photo of my seaview at a subrun in Georgia in early Dec. 07 the occasion of her maiden voyage.
I couldnt have been more pleased at that moment. Ah but now im getting ahead of myself again. Back to the build. More to follow. The wife is calling.

There are OLD pilots and there are BOLD pilots but there are very few OLD BOLD pilots. MAG

Mark, just want to compliment you on your Seaview build, great looking boat and the front windows turned out exceptionally well. I know you must have put many man hours in getting them just right, If you get a chance post some pics of it at the pond. Al,

Good morning gents. Its a wonderful day in the neighborhood. Moving right along. My next step was to attach the upper hull to the lower hull. The upper hull is made a little bit long, so I followed Ricks suggestion and used the extra that I cut off and glued it under the front lip with about a half inch protruding. This then holds the front in place while I used a screw to hold the back at the tail end.I used a piece of brass flat bar that you buy from the hobby store(1/4" x 1/16") bent roughly in the shape of a horseshoe. It was then drilled and tapped to accept a small stainless steel machine screw going thru from the upper hull. The horseshoe is then epoxied in at the tail end area. Because I wanted the screw to be recessed I had to turn the upper hull over and build a little dam out of wood around the edges about 3/8" deep filled with epoxy, at the location of the screw hole so that when you countersink your screw hole there will be something there for the screw head to pull against, other wise you would go right thru. Dont do like I did and make your epoxied area any bigger that it needs to be, all that does is add extra weight where you dont need it.

Next step was the superstructure that helps make this sub look so distinctive. Like most hulls that you buy it comes in rough form and you have to match its shape at the front and rear to match the contour of the hull. That takes a lot of time and patience and pencil marks and dremel with a round sanding drum attachment. Take your time. I went a little too deep in one spot and then had to apply bondo in that area.I just put the superstructure where it needed to go and slid some wax paper between it and the hull, squeegeed(is that spelled right?) bondo between the two, let it dry, sanded it down and you only know about this because I told you. Next the hard part. All the little drain slots for the superstructure have to be cut in. At least they are marked well. If I have any regrets in building this sub this is where it is at. I cut the slots too big. I did that because I was lazy and wanted to take the easy road and use my dremel instead of the tried and true method of drilling holes and then using a file.Instead of the scribbing on top of the superstructure to simulate missle tubes and hatches I filled them in with epoxy then after careful marking I glued stainless steel washers of what I consider appropriate size to the deck. Then I filled the holes in the washers with epoxy and sanded them down.You can tell I like epoxy. Buy the thin washers for a better look. The only down side to that is that it adds extra topside weight. Plastic washers would have been better but at the time I didnt think about it. I attached the superstructure to the upper hull with 2 machine screws from beneeth so that I wouldnt have any screw heads showing. But to do that I had to make two more epoxy dams in the bottom of the superstructure at the two areas that I decided was the best place for the screws. But this time I epoxied in two blind nuts with great care.Again, keep them small.

Sorry, I dont have any pictures showing the washers but what you can see here is the scribbing detail that could have been left as is. At that moment I just got a wild hair.The scribbing was not perfect but could have been cleaned up a little bit and that would have been sufficient.

There are OLD pilots and there are BOLD pilots but there are very few OLD BOLD pilots. MAG

If you go to yahoo or google and type in Xten.tv and click on the picture of the seaview it will show you a video of Rick Teskey and his seaview and his flying sub in operation. PRETTY COOL if you ask me!

These are pictures of ricks seaview

Last edited by greenman407 on Wed Jan 09, 2008 10:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.

There are OLD pilots and there are BOLD pilots but there are very few OLD BOLD pilots. MAG

The next step was to work with the sail. In a word BEAUTIFUL!!! It is a work of art. When I purchase a ready made part for something I usually have to do something to it or modify it.In this case it was perfect right out of the package. No sanding or filling was needed.I attached it with 2 sheet metal screws from below after I determined its proper location on the model.Since I wasnt going to be using the sail mounted dive planes for an RC function I glued them in place parallel to the horizontal axis. The included masts are kind of short. I may make and install longer ones at a future time. The included radar dish is a nice touch.
Here is a shot of the sail , diving planes ,propulsors, cadillac fins and other goodies that you get. Sorry about the clutter Notice the ragged looking slots that are evident in these two shots. Believe me they didnt stay that way very long.

Well thats a wrap on the sail part of this ,except for LED lighting which I will show you in a future installment of SEAVIEW BUILD!!! In the meantime as you contemplate what Im going to do next here are a few pictures from the movie and tv series. Stay tuned for more.

There are OLD pilots and there are BOLD pilots but there are very few OLD BOLD pilots. MAG

The next step in this adventure was to work with the propullsors. Using advanced country triangulation, I located the position that I wanted to install the WTC. I wanted to keep the angle of the drive shafts manageable so after measuring the angle of the dangle I came to the conclusion that the propullsors needed to go about,,,,,,,,,,,, right,,,,,,,,,,,, here.Therfore they were glued in place as you see them here.
Because there are so many different possibilitys for dive systems Rick doesnt give you assigned locations for componants. Its up to you to choose what systems that you are going to use and the way you are going to implement them.As you can see the opening of the propullsor cavity of the nacelle is completely open to the inside of the hull. As a consequence of that you would have no reverse. So to rectify this I made out of sheet plastic a cover to block off the opening, as you can see here.

And here

However in order to get reverse I had to open up some scoops for the water to get in to feed the impellors for forward and to create an exit for the water for reverse.So I created a scoop above and below the longitudinal fin that runs down the middle of the hull from end to end. It took a lot of cutting , filing and smoothing to satisfy me.

While we are on the subject ,Warren Wilson was the first person to look at this sub at a subrun in georgia and suggest to me that I would have problems with this setup because the scoops in the front were smaller than the opening in the back. Smart man! And as it turned out he was right. After several test runs in my pool I found that it was starving for water in forward. So this is what I did about it.

As you can see I drilled holes in the bottom of the nacelles to admit more water. Initially I was worried that I would lose efficiency in reverse but that hasnt proved to be true.In time im going to shape those holes into ported slots to channel the water.Well thats it for now dudes. See you next time.

There are OLD pilots and there are BOLD pilots but there are very few OLD BOLD pilots. MAG

I apologize for the quality of some of the photos. some of them are out of focus when you enlarge them. Not bad for a camera that has been dropped as many times as this one has. Also some of my pictures show more than one operation that has been performed and some show operations that I havent even talked about yet, but such is life.

There are OLD pilots and there are BOLD pilots but there are very few OLD BOLD pilots. MAG

Goodday gents, its a blustery day here in Clearwater florida, so I think I will stay in and do some work on this builders thread and maybe go submarining this afternoon. Now its time to work on the dive planes. Dave Merrimans builders kit for this submarine called for installing the dive planes inside the engine nacelles at the rear.
And of course that meant that they would have to be operated by a common shaft that went through them that had a clevis on it for attachment to a servo. The problem was that the longitudinal fin that runs down the side of the sub was in the way of drilling through to make this happen. I thought about it for a while and decided that I would once again depart from the Seaview design and make a little change. What I would do was that since the fin was in my way then it would just have to go. But it occured to me that if I did it carefully then I could use the piece that I cut off as a dive plane on the end of the same shaft that would work everything else(dont tell anyone)So after carefully marking I used my dremel(a wonderful tool) and a large cutoff wheel to cut through and remove the little bugger. My thoughts were that if for some reason it didnt work out I could reattach it later.

Another problem with this is that the fin was not mounted to the hull on the exact centerline of the nacelle therefore the new dive plane would be out of line with the fin and this would be quite noticable. Would this cause any handling problems? Only time would tell, after all this is a learning experience for me. Dave supplied the clevis to attach to the shaft. All you need to do is drill and tap it for the set screw(use stainless steel) I used an extra long 1/8" drill bit purchased at a tool company to drill all the way through both nacelles. Once again I employed a laser level to shine its laser inside the nacelles so that I could put a pencil mark ,and this mark is what I looked for as I slowly, carefully drilled through. Then since the shafts are a perfect match for the inside of a 1/8" brass tube I cut pieces of it 5/32" long to serve as bushings. The dive planes came predrilled so I would need to drill my addon planes in the same way.There seemed to be no way that a set screw was gong to work so I opted for the only thing else that I could think of. CA. I cut a slot in each plane to expose the area the shaft would be nestled in. Then I roughed up the shaft real good in the area that the CA would contact it. Then after cleaning it real good with mineral spirits , I assembled it. I knew that I would only have one shot at this so I paid it rapt attention. Allignment between all componants was key so eyeballing everything with an eagle eye I carefully and prayerfully applied thin CA into the slots of each. IT WORKED! After patting myself on the back and wiping away the nervous perspiration I went and got the camera.

Well Gents my hands are tired, next time we will do rudders.

There are OLD pilots and there are BOLD pilots but there are very few OLD BOLD pilots. MAG

Time to install rudders. The Dave merriman supplied rudders and holding brackets made it easier. You can see them here.
But to do it I had to recess the brackets into the fiberglass inside the nacelles.One top one bottom. I started out with a burr tool in my dremel and cut a groove as deep as I dared. Then using a flat jewelers file I flatened out the edges so that I had a nice even flat slot. I then epoxied them in paying careful attention to alignment. Using brass rod as the hinge I cut them to length and after blunting the end of it, it was then pushed through from the top. The fit is so good that it is not likely to come out.

As you can see the center rudder is attached to the Wtc for control and the outer two rudders are inturn attached to it by the use of a piece of 1/16" by 1/4" brass flat bar with small brass screws secured from the bottom. In the next shot you can see the push rods from the WTC and some supporting brackets holding them in alignment.

Well gents thats a wrap on todays episode of Seaview. Tune in again next time when you will hear Mark say.......Lets glue on some Cadillac fins.

Last edited by greenman407 on Wed Dec 26, 2007 11:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

There are OLD pilots and there are BOLD pilots but there are very few OLD BOLD pilots. MAG

I bought a two DVD set a while back from CultTVman.com called fantastic modeling volume 7. Its about Dave Merriman building a Seaview from Deboer. In it he goes into casting your own parts from white metal and plastic. He details models and masters and all kind of cool stuff. A must have as far as I am concerned. The best part of all is the last five minutes where you see action footage of the seaview set to music. Very well done.

There are OLD pilots and there are BOLD pilots but there are very few OLD BOLD pilots. MAG